Perception (2 page)

“Mom! You have to
keep your voice down. How many times do I have to tell you your voice travels
in this glass box?

“Oh.” She looked
mildly shaken. “No matter. Is everything coming together to your satisfaction?”

“I’m just checking in
on things now.”

“Your father and I
are meeting people for lunch. What time is the party again?”

I blew a frustrated
breath. She could at least pretend she cared enough to remember details I’d
told her a dozen times already.

“Seven.”

“Right. We’ll see you
at seven.”

Things proceeded
throughout the day as planned and I was pleased with my ability to pull off an
event like this on my own.

The decorators showed
up at 1:00 as promised.

The band arrived to
set up at 3:00.

I got dressed at 4:30,
having bought a thigh-length mini-dress that sparkled with tiny crystals just
for the occasion.

My hair and makeup
girl arrived at 5:00.

I tapped my ring and
called Jackson at 5:30.

“Where are you?” I
said to the three-inch holographic image of him that popped up above my palm.
“You said you’d help.”

“Sorry, Zo. Got tied
up at home.”

“Are you okay? You
don’t sound so good.”

It was odd. No one in
Sol City ever got really sick, but it wasn’t unheard of to get run down if you
pushed yourself too hard. Jackson had been working a lot lately.

“I didn’t sleep well
last night. Uh, spent most of the day in bed.”

I felt a little
panicky. “You’re still coming, aren’t you?”

“Of course. I’ll be
there soon.”

Alison and Paul
arrived at 6:30 along with all of mine and Liam’s friends.

I hushed everyone at
6:55, giving instructions on when to shout “Surprise!”

It was all a wasted
effort.

Liam never showed.

Chapter 2

I called Liam’s
ComRing compulsively as I made apologies to our friends knowing he’d probably
turned it off so he could work undisturbed.

This was so
humiliating! I imagined him hunched over his lab desk, sleeping on his glass
text-reader, drool leaking out of the side of his mouth. I knew he’d been
working too hard.

Oh, why this day of
all days did he have to go and be so irresponsible?

I instructed the band
to play anyway and told everyone to start in on the food. No reason why we
shouldn’t still have fun, even if Liam had to spoil things.

“Let’s dance,” I said
to Jackson, who’d arrived late.

I needed a diversion
to help me calm the anger boiling right under the disappointment bubbling right
under the embarrassment I was feeling.

“Actually, I think
I’m going to go,” Jackson said.

“You’re still feeling
sick?” He did look pale. “Okay, fine.” I tried to keep the annoyance out of my
voice. He couldn’t help it if he didn’t sleep last night. “I’ll see you
tomorrow.”

He gave me a quick,
very un-romantic kiss and left.

At least I still had
Charlotte. Her stilettos clicked on the tile as she walked toward me with an
apologetic look.

“Hey, I fully expect
Riley to jerk around with me when he gets older, too.”

Her brother was only
twelve, but at that moment, I was convinced it was true.

“We can still have
fun,” she continued, raising her blond eyebrows in encouragement and smiling.
“Let’s go talk to Serena and Isabella.”

***

I joined Paul and
Alison for breakfast the next morning just as Alison went off again about Liam.

“Maybe he should get
a summer job. Learn what it means to work, to stick to a schedule.”

“It's not like he's
into drugs, Alison.” Paul rested his elbows on the table with the casual
confidence of someone who worried little. He had a fit body from surfing and
playing tennis daily, a chiselled handsome face and shaggy blond surfer hair
that better suited a swim model than the company executive he was. Alison sat
on the opposite end, the two of them looking like attractive, world-conquering
book ends.

“He's been
experimenting at the lab. Maybe he's on the brink of a new
breakthrough—something you might actually be proud of.”

Liam probably fell
asleep at the lab. The students kept a cot there so they could take naps
instead of coming home.

“Have you called the
lab?” I asked. Paul took a bite of scrambled eggs and swallowed. “Yeah, no
one's seen him, but that doesn't mean anything. The university's a big place.”

I left my dishes on
the table and started toward the steps to my room, but I paused before going
up. I changed direction and moved quietly to the back of the hall and pushed
Liam’s door open. Would be just like him to have sneaked in and be snoring in
his bed while we wondered and worried.

No such luck.

Liam had a photo wall
comprised of digital one-foot square tiles that flipped randomly through his
favourite pictures. They cast luminous blue and green shimmers throughout the
room and across my body as I stepped closer. Most depicted Liam and his friends
up to their antics, and there were a few gentler ones of our family. Of those,
most were of me and Liam together, taken by one of our parents. I focused on
one with the two of us lying on surf boards at the beach, both with sun-kissed
skin and bright-white, straight teeth. I pressed the image, pausing it.

I was ten years old
when Liam taught me to surf. I'd felt so clumsy, and couldn't find my center of
gravity. He'd insisted I keep trying until I caught my first small wave even
though I was on the verge of tears and wanting to quit the whole time. I'd
hated him for not letting me give up and then, when I’d accomplished the feat, I
loved him because he hadn't.

So far I’d
successfully pushed away the nagging thought that something bad might have
happened to him. This time the thought hit me like a wall and struck me with
cool fear. A lump formed in my throat.

Get a grip, Zoe!
Of course Liam was fine. I grabbed a bed sheet off the floor and
snapped it in the air in an effort to shake off the crazy fear.

The sheet
straightened mid air and floated flat along his bed. A small white piece of
paper drifted to the ground, so I picked it up. One word was printed in full
caps: DEXTER.

I tapped my ring and
spoke Jackson’s name. It buzzed un-answered. Weird. Jackson always answered my
calls. In fact, I was surprised he hadn’t dropped by for breakfast, assuming he
slept last night. Jackson tended to spend more time at our house than he did at
his own, though I didn’t blame him. His parents were never home. As an only
child, Jackson had practically raised himself.

I decided if he
wasn’t going to answer his ComRing, I’d just go to his house and wake him up.

I stuffed the note in
my pocket and went to the garage. Then I belted myself into my two-seater
MagLev,
my magnetic levitating pod-car. It was a gift from Paul on my seventeenth
birthday and although it resembled a huge dinosaur egg, I loved it.

It was great to have my
own transportation, finally. It only carried two people, which caused some
dissension among my friends, especially Isabella and Serena since I almost
always took Charlotte, but it was better than public transit or having to get
Alison to drive me around.

I spoke Jackson's
name into the dashboard computer. My pod car followed the magnetic grid through
the city—down wide boulevards lined with tall palm trees and artificial energy
capturing “trees” that looked more like over-sized kitchen utensils—miraculously
skirting pedestrians and a maze of other electro magnetic vehicles.

Jackson’s house was
nestled into a rocky cove further south of our place. I pulled up to the gate
and extended my hand out the window. A quick scan allowed me entrance. My pod
continued up the long curvy drive. Unlike our sleek, sparse house, the Pike
home was patterned after an ancient Roman village. Tall pillars marked a solar-lighted
walkway to the heavy, wooden front doors.

Jackson opened it. His
sandy hair stuck out in every direction, and his t-shirt was wrinkled and
creased like he'd slept in it. Dark circles ringed his blue eyes. Normally, he
was quite swoon-worthy, but at the moment he looked like crap.

“Still didn’t sleep?”
I asked.

“No.”

“Maybe you should
take something.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

I passed through the
front doors into a sweeping foyer floored with black and white tiles that led
to broad windows on the back side of the house. Gigantic waves crashed up
against black rocks beyond. An impressive chandelier hung over our heads.

We were joined by a
short humanoid robot about three and a half feet tall. Though its footsteps
were stiff, it still somehow managed to glide across the floor.

I’d seen them
advertized on TV but had never seen one up close before.

“It’s my mother’s new
toy,” Jackson said. “She calls it Mimi.”

The robot stopped and
stared at the mention of its name. Lips like red liquorice turned upwards in a
smile. Its table tennis eyeballs opened in question.

“Continue on,”
Jackson said to it.

The robot had a duster
and proceeded to tend to a large vase on a side table.

I watched with
amazement and thought how envious Alison would feel knowing these units were
making waves in the neighborhood.

I thought the thing
was kind of creepy.

“Have you heard from
Liam?” I said. “He hasn’t shown up at home yet and he’s not answering his
ComRing. I’m starting to get worried.”

“I haven’t seen him
since yesterday morning at the university. I came home early to sleep.”

“But, why isn't he
answering his phone?”

Jackson shook his head.
“Maybe he turned it off.”

“Maybe. He did seem
pretty excited about whatever it is you guys are working on, and probably
didn’t want to be interrupted.” I pushed my annoyance away. Their secret
project wasn’t the issue now, finding Liam was. “Who else might know where he
is?”

“I don’t know.”

The scrap piece of
paper was in my pocket, so I showed it to Jackson. “I found this in Liam’s
room.”

He blinked and shook
his head. “Uh, sorry, Zo, I don't know what that means.”

“But, Liam told you
everything!”

At some point in the
last year Liam had shifted his confidences to Jackson, though I couldn't remember
if it was before or after Jackson had become my boyfriend; before or after
Alison had a fit that I was dating a boy four years older than me.

Paul had reasoned
with her: They'd known Jackson since he was a kid, hadn't they? He was like a
second son. If there was anyone they could trust with their daughter, it was
Jackson.

I'd never questioned
that trust before now, but something about the way he squirmed slightly under my
gaze made me doubtful. Jackson was keeping something from me.

“Liam didn't tell me
everything,” he finally said. “I'm not his only friend.”

“Okay, then who else?”

Jackson ran a hand
through his hair. “I don't know. All the guys at the lab.”

“Like who?”

He hummed. “Mitchell.”

“Mitchell?”

“Mitchell Redding. He's
one of the lab geeks. Look, Zoe,” he pulled me into a hug. “I'm sure Liam’s
fine. He’s a big boy. He can take care of himself.”

Jackson was right, of
course. I let out a breath and allowed myself to sink into his strong body. He
stroked my hair and kissed the top of my head, and I suddenly felt ashamed for
doubting him.

But Liam wasn’t home
when I returned, and he didn’t come home overnight either.

By morning Alison had
filed a missing person’s report.

Chapter 3

The door-bell
resounded like church bells throughout the house. We’d been expecting the
authorities, and Alison applied a quick layer of lipstick before heading for
the front door, her heels, as always, clicking on the tiles.

The doors were steel-plated
and engraved with an artistic, interlocking-block design, and yet, surprisingly
light to open. I heard Alison invite the authorities inside. They passed the
indoor wall garden and the waterfall lining a sizable foyer and entered our
sunken living room. Sky-lights cast sunrays that bounced off the white walls. On
days like this, I felt like I needed to wear sunglasses in the house to fight
off the glare.

The two uniformed men
introduced themselves as Officers Grant and Diaz. Grant had deep-set,
steely-blue eyes that I found unsettling. Each took a seat in our white leather
and chrome director-style chairs. I could tell by Paul’s expression that he was
as uncertain as I was about what they would ask.